Time Machine week 24

Today is October 3, 1972.  With nothing much happening today, I looked to what would happen tomorrow- the 4th- and saw on Wiki under "October 4, 1972" that the Kansas City Monarchs played their "last game as a professional baseball team."  Being the good historian that I am, I looked into that claim and found that the former great Negro League baseball team had actually disbanded in 1965.  So what's up with the wiki entry?  Well, it was actually the date that the Kansas City Royals- the current American League Baseball team- played their last game IN old Memorial Stadium, the former home OF the Monarchs.  Might want to do a little further research, buddy.


Welcome to Time Machine for the week that saw two songs hit the airwaves for the first time- Donna Fargo's Funny Face being one.  The other?  A song that you hear when you look up the word classic- Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes' If You Don't Know Me By Now.  So what do we have for you this week?  Well we have the #8 greatest top top ten- and the first that did not win its year;  We have three top ten songs from last week drop out of the top 40 altogether (actually, out of the top 50!); #9 on the one hit wonders' next hit list; a six degrees that catches a song dropping within the top ten that DOESN'T drop off the chart;  the Beatle who ate celery; and three acts that I didn't know that make their top 40 debuts!  And, not one, not two, but THREE videos! No swings and misses here!

George Brett says, "Do I LOOK like a KC Monarch???"

This week, I'm going to start in an odd place- the top ten dropouts.  This week, the songs that were 11,13, 14, and 15 last week enter the top ten (What about #12?  The Bee Gees Run To Me moved up to 11.), so 4 songs fall out.  One of them- ironically, Alone Again Naturally- stayed in the top 40, falling from #6 all the way to 26.  But the others took falls only describable as epic.  The first was Long Cool Woman; the former #1 went from 7 down 49 places to #56!  Then went I'm Still In Love With You, another former #1, falling 50 spots from #8 to 58!  And then, it was The Guitar Man, dropping 49 spots from 10 to 59!  I'm NOT going to research that but it HAS to be some kind of record!

Let's move on to the one hit wonder's next hit for this week.  Back in '70, Eddie Holman hit with the original Hey There Lonely Girl (later reprised by Robert John), peaking on Billboard at #2, and #1 on CB.  However, he came closest before that in 1965, when he hit #57 with this one:






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Our You Peaked feature has two tunes this week- Uriah Heap's Easy Livin' stopped at 32 last week, and Millie Jackson's My Man A Sweet Man topped off at 34.

As for our biggest movers in the countdown this week, both are yet in the top 40 debuts to come.


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This week, we are at the eighth biggest of the top top tens- but only the second biggest of 1976!  This lineup appeared the last week of May '76- while my career in grade school was ending, my warts were going away from rubbing a half a potato on them and tossing it over my shoulder (no lie!), and my Mom was showing the first signs of the leukemia that would soon take her life.  A bittersweet time for me, for sure- and here is the top top ten from that week.


10- Sara Smile, Hall And Oates.  Our first big tastes of the duo that would rock our world for the next 20 years.

9- Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win?), Fleetwood Mac.  The first salvo from the old band newly re-energized by the adding of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, that would soon result in the classic lp Rumours.

8- Fooled Around And Fell In Love, Elvin Bishop.  Sung by Mickey Thomas, who'd go on to superstardom with Starship... and brings back the fondest memories of early summer.


7- Misty Blue, Dorothy Moore.   Can you hear this one in your mind and NOT want to slow dance?

6- Happy Days, Pratt and McLain.  These days were ours....

5- Shannon, Henry Gross.  A top 5 of the seventies for me.

4- Get Up And Boogie, Silver Convention.  Let me put up "the picture"* and we'll see if we get a lot of hits from the German pervs.

*"Silver Convention" is my second most used keyword according to my stats page- when I first used this picture, it was constantly taking German searchers for S.C. images to my post.



3- Love Hangover, Diana Ross.  If you really boil it down, this was one of the only three times- Love Child and Theme To Mahogany the others- that I actually liked Ross.

2- Welcome Back, John Sebastian.  Made Welcome Back Kotter the huge summer hit it became.

Annnnnnd at #1 that magical week-

1- Silly Love Songs, Wings.  "But over the years people have said, "Aw, he sings love songs, he writes love songs, he's so soppy at times." I thought, Well, I know what they mean, but, people have been doing love songs forever. I like 'em, other people like 'em, and there's a lot of people I love -- I'm lucky enough to have that in my life. So the idea was that "you" may call them silly, but what's wrong with that?"  Paul McCartney to Billboard.


And just as a side note, here's something that will make the libs out there gag (no barfing in the Time Machine, please!)

John Lennon's last personal assistant said as the musician aged, he got more conservative.  No surprise there, most intellectuals do.   In a new documentary,"Beatles Stories", Fred Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn't the peace-loving militant fans thought he was and that he instead argued with former left-wing radicals and was embarrassed by his former stances.

Well, in "Revolution" he was already drawing a demarcation line with radicals who just wanted to blow things up and change for the sake of change, not change for a better world, so it isn't a complete surprise.

"John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter," said Seaman.  "He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he'd been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy's naivete."

No surprise.  In the early 1970s he ridiculed Paul McCartney's songs but his biggest success came after he aged and made "Double Fantasy", chock full of the kind of stuff McCartney had been writing all along.   With wisdom, Lennon's politics went right and so did his music. 

-Hank Campbell, "No Silly Love Songs for John Lennon-He was a Closet Republican", 6-29-2011 on Science20.com


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If someone could pass the box of tissues to the left, we'll move on to this weeks' top 40 debuts.  Up two notches to #40 is Jerry Wallace, an oldie-but-goodie who first hit the big time in 1959 with his #8 Primrose Lane, but went country after 1965, with a tune that would hit #1 on the country charts- If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry.  This particular song became a hit after being featured on a Night Gallery episode called The Tune In Dan's Cafe.

The next of the 8 debuts is another I didn't know- A band out of south Texas called Gladstone.  Details are sketchy about this band, other than the album was released once titled "Down Home In Tyler, Texas" and again- with different cover art but the same songs- simply titled Gladstone.  The group featured Mike Rabon, who'd been with the Five Americans on their hit Western Union.  The song itself is a Vietnam protest of sorts called A Piece Of Paper.





One YouTube commenter said the song had been banned from radio.  While I can't confirm that, It sure wouldn't surprise me noting the climate of the times.  A Piece Of Paper comes in at #39, up 4.

The third of my mystery debuts is from a lady named Chi (pronounced "shy") Coltrane, who was the daughter of a Canadian mom and German dad from Racine Wisconsin, so naturally she was more popular in Europe than here.  Her song was called Thunder And Lightning, and came in at #37, up a dozen spots.

In between the last two, the Spinners came in at #38, up ten with I'll Be Around.  Then after, David Cassidy moves from 41 to 35 with another song I didn't know, Rock Me Baby, a tune written by Johnny Cymbal (Mr. Bass Man).  The Fifth Dimension also stumped me with the song that came in at 34, up 11 spots- If I Could Reach You, a pretty song that would go on to become their last big hit... and I don't know why it wasn't bigger around here.






The final two debuts this week both take the title of biggest move in the hot 100 (at least upward), with a 21 notch climb.  The one which ends its climb at # 33 is Johnny Nash's I Can See Clearly Now; the one that goes to #31 is the Doobie Brothers and Listen To The Music.


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And I believe that gets us to the top ten for this week.

The #11 song last week, Joe Simon's slow-rising Power Of Love finally gets there at #10.

The #15 song last week is now at #9- Michael Jackson's Ben.

And at #8, the feature at the heart of our six degrees.  And to set the stage for this, I have to share the story of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys' song Heroes And Villains.  According to Terry Melcher, from Tom Nolan at Rolling Stone:


Brian was holding onto this single, like: "All right, world – I've got it," and waiting for the right time. He felt it was important to wait for the right time. It was a good record. This woman, I guess she was an astrologer–of sorts–she came by Brian's house. She said to him, "Brian – the time is right." He was waiting for the word from this woman to release the record, I guess. So he said, "All right." He called the whole group. It was like: 'OK. Look. Here it is.'A small disk, you know. Seven inches. It was very solemn, very important. Weighty. A heavy situation. It was all, "Brace yourself – for the big one." 

All the group had those limos. And there was a caravan of Rolls-Royces taking the record to KHJ. He was going to give the station an exclusive, just give it to them without telling Capitol. We got to the gate of KHJ. The guard wouldn't let us in. A little talking, a little hubbub, a little bullshit. The guard was finally intimidated enough by four or five Rolls-Royce limousines to open his gate. 

We got in the building, got to the disc jockey who was presiding over the turntable. It was pretty late, probably around midnight. Brian said, "Hi, I'm Brian Wilson, here's the new Beach Boys single. I'd like to give you and KHJ an exclusive on it." And this asshole turned around and he said: "Can't play anything that's not on the playlist." And Brian almost fainted. It was all over. He'd been holding the record, waiting for the right time. He'd had astrologers figuring out the correct moment. It really killed him. Finally they played it, after a few calls to the program director or someone, who screamed, "Put it on, you idiot." But the damage to Brian had already been done.



Heroes And Villains ended up being the centerpiece of the album Smiley Smile, which rose from the ashes of the shelved Smile project.  Another tune on that lp was Vegetables, which was originally Vege-Tables on the Smile project.  On that recording (which finally saw the light of day in  1993 when Brian finally finished Smile), a visiting Paul McCartney played the "percussion"- he chewed celery for the recording.  McCartney had dropped by to chat with the Boys about the upcoming release of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  According to the story, he played the song She's Leaving Home for Brian and his wife- "We both cried.  It was beautiful."

That song was the only Beatles track that was arranged by anyone but George Martin WITH the Beatles' permission (unlike the Let It Be lp).  George wasn't available, Paul was impatient, and Mike Leander arranged it, though George produced it.  It was the first Beatles song where none of the boys played on it- Just Paul on lead vocal, and John on chorus.  Leander would go on to make a name as an arranger and writer, and one of those co-writing credits is the song at #8 this week, down from 3- Gary Glitter's Rock And Roll Pt 2.


Last week's #13 is at #7 this time- Eric Carmen and the Raspberries with Go All The Way.

And the #14 from last week is at #6- Chuck Berry and My Ding-A-Ling.

The O'Jays drop from the top spot to #5 with Back Stabbers.

Jumping 5 to #4 are the Main Ingredient with Everybody Plays The Fool.

At #3, up a pair, Chicago with Saturday In The Park.

Also up a pair to #2, Mac Davis and Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me.


Which means our new top dog- up from the runner up spot- belongs to:

...Three Dog Night with Black And White!



That's a wrap, kids!  Next time!